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Thursday, December 19, 2013

An Epidemic

After the most recent STR hole discovery, I decided to take a closer look at the other STR socks in my sock drawers. Unfortunately, what I found was not unexpected: It seems that the vast majority of them (a couple of pairs are in the pile waiting to be washed, so I didn't inspect them) are developing definite thin spots in the same place, right where the ball of my foot hits. Given that most of my STR pairs were knit in about the same time frame, it's logical that they'd all be showing similar signs of wear, particularly as those socks have tended to be my favorites and have seen more wear than other pairs in my collection.

Judging from these observations, I've made a number of conclusions about these socks:

Socks That Rock is 100% superwash merino. Although it's tightly spun/plied, it's likely not going to be quite as durable as a wool/nylon blend or even a 100% wool yarn from a breed that's a little more hardy than merino.

These socks probably could have been knit at a slightly tighter gauge. I think I probably did most of them on what used to be my favorite sock needles -- two 12" Addi Turbo circs in a US 1.5 (2.5 mm). I think my gauge has loosened a bit in the intervening years, so I'd probably need to knit replacements on a US 1 or 0.

It might not be a bad idea to add a little reinforcement to the soles of some of my socks.

I do have quite a few skeins of STR in my stash from club shipments from years ago that I never knit, so I may wind up a few to have on hand and keep a pair going at all times to slowly replenish the collection.

Appropriately, though it's not in STR, I did just finish a new sock and cast on for its mate.

This was a design idea that I was playing with and started working on the weekend after Thanksgiving. I ignored it for a while, so it didn't really take me two and a half weeks to knit one sock (although that's not an outrageous amount of time given that it's been my lunchtime knitting for the past week or so, so it's only seen about a half hour to 45 minutes of attention on any given day). The yarn is Lucina in Plume from SpaceCadet Creations that I picked up at Indie Knit and Spin last month, and the color is nowhere near accurate -- it's actually a slightly blue shade of purple.

Meanwhile, I did get out to knit night last night (thanks to my parents, who were able to come over and babysit Rainbow so I could have a night out), and I spent the two hours working on the body to Rainbow's Antler cardigan. It needs about one more inch to get to the length specified in the pattern, but I think I'm going to add an additional inch or two to allow her to get some more wear out of the sweater. My hope is to get that done and make a start on the yoke this weekend, and if it's not done by the time we leave for our Christmas trip, it'll come with me in the car.